The trial of John M. Thurston caused quite a
stir in the Village of Owego during the fall of 1851. From his temporary
residence in Connecticut, James S. Griffing was able to follow the accounts of
the trial from the Owego newspapers which were forwarded to him by his
relatives. Several of James' acquaintances were involved in the trial
proceedings as jurors or witnesses. James' cousin, Frederick Parmelee, a
wheelwright who lived directly across the street from the defendant, was called
as a character witness as were many others.
Tioga Oyer
& Terminer – October, 1851
Trial of John M. Thurston
Indicted for the Murder of Anson Garrison
At Owego,
Tioga County
,
New York
Present – Livenus Monson,
Justice
C.P. Avery,
County
Judge
Israel
S. Hoyt
& J. T. Waldo, Associate Judges
Counsel for the People – A. Munger, District Attorney;
N. Davis
; E. S. Sweet; and the Hon. Joshua A. Spencer.
Counsel for the Defense – John J. Taylor; George Sidney Camp; and the Hon. D.
S. Dickinson.
October 13, 2 o’clock, P.M.
At the opening of the Court
the prisoner, John M. Thurston, was brought in by Dept. Sheriff Willard and
seated along with his Counsel. He is exceedingly pale, wears a careworn
expression, is genteelly dressed, and presents to spectators the appearance of a
man of intelligence, and withal, a person whose breeding and advantages have
been good. Nor would he be taken by the casual observer to be a man of that
ungovernable and ferocious temper which are alledged to enter so conspicuously
into his character; but rather as possessing mildness and gentleness in a rare
degree.
The calling of the Jury was
about being proceeded with, when Mr. Dickinson raised an objection to the
empanelling of the Jury. He said the statute authorized the Justices of the
Supreme Court in capital cases to draw 24 jurors in addition to the ordinary
panel. A certificate was made in this case and the drawing was ordered. In the
drawing of these additional Jurors 24 were drawn, and Marshall Anderson who was
drawn upon the regular panel was also drawn upon the extra panel, so that but 23
were given.
The entire afternoon was
consumed in getting the requisite number of Jurors – upward of forty being set
aside. The following are the Jurors finally accepted and sworn:
L__an Whittemore; John M. Van
Kleeck; Pet__ Ross; Theodorus Herrick; John Ward; B. _. Green; Wm. Arnold;
Holmes Barratt; John Whitaker; John C. Lincoln; Wm. B. Updegrove; Aaron C.
Chapman.
At 7 o’clock the Court
adjourned till 8:15 tomorrow morning.
Second Day
Tuesday morning, 8 ˝
o’clock
At the opening of the court
Mr. Dickinson, on the part of the Defense said:
We do not expect to be able
to proceed till 3 o’clock on account of the absence of important witnesses.
They are material witnesses and it is in the opinion of counsel, necessary that
they should be here at the beginning of the trial to hear the testimony and all
the attending circumstances of the alleged crime. The counsel regret being
obliged to apply for the delay. We think it will not delay the trial much after
all, but we feel constrained to ask the indulgence of the court until that time.
We certainly would not make the application if we did not think it necessary,
for we are very anxious to proceed.
Further proceedings in the
trial were accordingly postponed till 3 o’clock, P.M.
Afternoon Session
2 ˝ o’clock, P.M.
On the coming in of the
Court, Mr. Dickinson rose and said: -- We wish to make this suggestion in regard
to the indictment. It is a matter upon which the Court had not jurisdiction. The
indictment alleges the Court to have been held before Wm H. Shankland, Justice;
Charles P. Avery,
County
Judge
, and Daniel S. Hoyt, Justice of the Peace. Now the point is there is no such
office as Justice of the Peace of the County. He is an officer, by the
Constitution of a Town, designated by law to ___pon a Court of Sessions.
The court overruled the
exception.
Mr. Dickinson. The court will
have the kindness to note an exception to it.
Opening for the People by
Hon. Joshua A Spencer.
The Hon. Joshua A. Spencer,
for the People, addressed the Jury as follows, --
Gentlemen of the Jury – By
the oath which you have taken, you are well informed of the name of the
defendant, who is arraigned and is now at the bar of this Court to be tried for
an offence of the highest grade known to our law. The responsibility which this
trial devolves on you is one of greater weight than we, any of us, have language
to describe. You have sworn to make true deliverance between the people of this
State and the prisoner at the bar and to find a verdict according to the
evidence which shall be adduced before you.
I need not spend time, I
hope, gentlemen, in invoking from you a patient, deliberate, intelligent,
upright, and firm hearing in this case. It is one which must call into exercise
every faculty of your minds, your ripest judgment, your best good sense, your
sagacity in every respect fully to appreciate and understand the evidence as it
shall be adduced before you. – If you have any prepossessions of any
description whatever it behooves you carefully to examine yourselves and to
faithfully dismiss them all. If in reading this account when it first appeared
in the newspapers – and doubtless you are all reading men…..
John Metcalf Thurston, the
prisoner at the bar, stands indicted for the crime of MURDER. This is the
expressive term known to our law, and it embraces in itself – that single word
embraces every single element in its definition that constitutes the crime. A
Grand Jury of this county, setting a former Court, after a careful hearing of
the evidence only on the part of the prosecution – accused him of having
fellonously taken the life of his fellow. The name of the deceased whom he is
charged with having felloneously killed, is ANSON GARRISON.
Only a short time ago, on the
7th of February last, Anson Garrison was a young man in full health and life,
and had been many years before that a resident among you, and, it may be, known
to you all. In the course of the events pertaining to human life, some seven or
eight years since this Mr. Anson Garrison was married to the sister of the
defendant in this trial. The precise time of the marriage may appear in evidence
in the course of the trial. In the course of time Garrison and his wife had
become the parents of a little child, as off-spring of that marriage, now five
or six years old, and I believe the only child. They had lived together as
husband and wife for a goodly number of years. Mr. Garrison himself was a
prosperous man, an industrious mechanic, a frugal citizen, universally
respected; and, yet, for some reason, which may not fully appear, nor is it
necessary to be very particular about it – but, for some reason or other, they
had not lived very happy in the married state, certainly not towards the close
of his life.
On the 6th day of February
last, Mrs. Garrison left their house, caused by some difficulty which arose
between herself and husband. She went from her own house and home, leaving her
husband and child, as I am informed, to the house of her parents, who are now
residents of the village and have long been. They are aged people, and are
parents of a numerous family of children. From the house of the parents she
repaired to the house of her brother John M. Thurston. Sometime in the course of
the 7th day of February she went to her brother’s house. Her brother had
previously, shortly before this time, entered into the married state, and but a
brief period before this visit had become a house-keeper scarcely settled in
life, and not married more than three months. She spent the d ay at her
father’s and brothers. During the day the little child, the daughter of Mr.
Garrison, was allowed to go to her mother and spend a considerable portion of
the day with her.
In the course of this day,
the 7th of February – that fatal day – Mr. Thurston the prisoner, visited
Mr. Garrison at his place of engagement as a mechanic. Garrison had been 12 or
14 years engaged in labor as a mechanic in the furnace or machine shop belonging
to Mr. Camp of this village – perhaps a longer period than almost any man has
been engaged as a journeyman, laboring man, or master mechanic, in the
employment of the same person. While there engaged on the 7th of February,
Thurston, the prisoner, visited him several times, and spent with him several
hours in private conversation. What was the subject of that conversation we are
not enabled to show, but they were in earnest private conversation in the
apartment of the furnace where Garrison was at work. It is fair to presume that
they were engaged in conversation more than any other topic, about the
difficulty between the husband and wife; and also, in respect to another
question, who was entitled to the custody of the child in the vent of a
separation.
I understand, also, that Mr.
Thurston during the day took counsel from legal gentlemen in this village as to
which, as a matter of right, in point of law, the custody of this child
belonged; and was informed that as the wife had voluntarily left home and child,
she had no right to the child, and it belonged to the father. It will appear
farther from the evidence which will be laid before you, that there had been
some arrangement made between the prisoner and Garrison, that the latter should
come up to visit his wife and talk up the matter between them; and that the
interview was to have a direct bearing on the question whether the daughter
should remain with the mother or return with the father. -- Evening came, the
sister of the prisoner, the wife of the deceased being at John M. Thurston’s.
At about 7 o’clock, which at that season must have been after dark, Garrison
came up after his daily labor, to keep his appointment, and as he approached the
house of Thurston, near the gate, he met Thurston at the gate, which is some 10
or 12 feet from and in front of the door, and was accosted by him, saying, “I
was just starting after you fearing you would not come.” Thurston invited him,
with as much of pleasant expression in his voice as any one would, to walk in.
Garrison first desired to see his wife, and to have her come to the door. But he
was invited into the house instead. In obedience to this invitation to walk in,
he went in. The door in front opened into an entry, and on the left the door
opened into a parlor or front room of that building. Leading into the kitchen is
a narrow passage. From that passage they stepped down one step into the room
they occupied as a kitchen. In the warm season the kitchen might have been down
in the temporary house, but in the winter season the room I speak of was
regarded as the kitchen and will be spoken of as such by the witnesses. We shall
have a diagram of the house and grounds to show you. It is a small room perhaps
12 by 14 or 15 feet. In this room was a cooking stove. At the time of their
entering there were several females in the room. There was, for example, the
mother of Thurston, the wife of Thurston, the married sister of Thurston, and,
perhaps there may have been some other ladies. This little child was in the room
as they entered. As soon as they entered the room, Thurston set a chair and
invited Mr. Garrison to take a seat, or nearly so – the precise time cannot be
made to appear from any quarter – but at some little – a very short time
after. Mr. Thurston had set a chair, and Mr. Garrison had taken a seat he spoke
to the little child, he may have spoken to her before he took a seat. He invited
the child to him, and I believe changed his position a trifle, moving towards
her; and the child, by invitation of the father, and, at the suggestion of the
mother, went from the mother to the father, and was sitting on his lap. He was
caressing the child, and the child was at the same time crying, though for what
reason may not clearly appear. It was a young child, and for some cause was
crying, & the father was endeavoring with kind words & with soft and
gentle voice, to soothe her. All this however, occupied less time than I have
taken in relating it to you.
After Garrison had taken his
seat, Thurston stepped out at the door. Garrison sat a short distance from the
door with his back towards it. His chair must have been nearly as far back as
would allow the door to swing round open behind it. That door opened into the
temporary erection, kitchen, shed, or whatever you may be pleased to call it,
two steps down from the room where the family were sitting around the stove. He
went out of this door and immediately, or within a very short space of time,
returned, but saying not a word. During his absence he had possessed himself of
an axe. I don’t think any one of the persons who were in the room saw, with
any considerable distinctness, whether Thurston was holding the axe or not. I
have not been able to understand whether any one of them saw when he entered the
room that he had an axe; but in a moment, almost instantly, not being over three
or four feet from Garrison, he struck the bit of this axe, the whole length,
into the head of Garrison, a little to the left of the centre of the head,
burying the axe entirely up to the helve into the brain of Garrison. That blow
instantly killed Garrison. Beyond all doubt his death was instantaneous. The
blow was from behind and when this fatal blow was given he was not conscious of
what had befallen him. This is the material and fatal blow; but, in an instant,
as soon as a second blow could be given, he struck Garrison a second blow at the
side of the head. His head had fallen only a little back on one side after the
first blow, and was left sitting as he had done previously. Not a muscle had
moved when the second blow was dealt. This blow was also struck from behind,
severing the jaw bone, striking the teeth and making a very heavy gash. That
blow could have inflicted no additional pain. It is a circumstance of no
importance except that it shows the determination to destroy life, if the first
blow had not been fatal, in the mind of him who dealt the first blow; but as you
will understand much better than witnesses can describe or counsel portray,
these blows followed each other almost instantaneously. – They were dealt and
Garrison sat in his chair.
At what time the child was
taken from the lap of Mr. Garrison may not appear; but the child was separated
from the father very soon after the father was separated from this world.
It is not very material to
give you much detail of what followed that period; but, at some time, as some of
the witnesses will declare to you, Thurston, himself, had hold of the head of
Garrison. He yet sat in the chair until a good many neighbors came in, and
remained sitting until those whose painful office it was to fold him in his
winding sheet, removed him to perform that last office. Several persons,
directly after this, spoke with Thurston, and he spoke of having done the deed
himself. He did not disguise it. He requested one or more of the witnesses to go
for a physician; and another of the witnesses to call in a magistrate, or an
officer; and I believe the physician and the officer were called. The officer
came and Thurston submitted himself to arrest.
[Will add more later as
transcribed from record.]
